Survey Atlasia: February At-Large Senate Special Election

[Marokai Backbeat]

Forgive Snowstalker; he's been on a bit of a trolling spree lately.

Trolling spree? It's not trolling to say what he's saying. I'm done playing nice about this; Napoleon getting any endorsements, especially from actually good and serious people like yourself, is an outright joke. Only in Atlasia would someone who is still currently President, who has an abominable reputation with obscene approval numbers in a second term that has ranged from "ugh" bad to "let's-just-pretend-he-isn't-President-anymore" bad, who has spent more time trolling the Senate than doing anything else (and is not above even trolling his own party's convention) would then announce with a month left in his term that he is running for Senate, and then out of nowhere get raucous endorsements.

There are moments when people need some time on the sidelines to reform and get back in the swing of things from the ground up after spending far too much time in the business, as it were. This is undeniably one of those times. Napoleon doesn't deserve this, and that people are endorsing him at all is perhaps more a testament to the presently decaying state of the Liberal Party and your lack of ability to find better candidates and the counter-productive attitude of certain posters who value bizarre personal loyalty above doing even a remotely good job.

Are we in an alternate universe or something? A couple months ago, people were despairing at the horrible, awful, terrible, no good, very bad job Napoleon was doing as President and how eager they were to move on. Are you people into self-harm, or something? This is Exhibit A of why we never solve any of Atlasia's problems.

[Marokai Backbeat]

When Napoleon was in the Senate, he spent more time obstructing and trolling good proposals, and failing to show up for his own bills, than any other Senator. We amended the motion to tabling procedure just to prevent his continued abuse of it. Napoleon being a good Senator is one of the greatest myths of this game. His tenure as Senator was an appropriate precursor to his time as President; a person who stumbles through the job occasionally doing something good, but mostly just spending time f**king with people.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Napoleon's term in the Senate was marked by constant conflict and terrible ideas.  He put the SoEA on ignore, which hampered his ability to introduce legislation.

Not just ignoring the SoEA, but proposing a repeal of the GM powers given to the SoEA and SoIA. When this proposal came to the floor, it sat there for a week as the Senate waited for him to advocate for it. He didn't, and then he voted to defeat the bill he proposed and then deliberately ignored requests for him to defend.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'm not going to get drawn into a petty back and forth, I'm just going to say that you have a greater duty right now as President you should have the decency to serve out before going to something else, and that there should be consequences to doing a bad job, otherwise this game will never improve. A wacky campaign is interesting, but it's the equivalent of a drunken night of fun before people wake up to a 4-month long regretful hangover.

If people don't care about doing a good job, and intend to vote for you regardless of your performance, that is an acceptable rationale, but those people should be honest about that, and stop pretending they care about this game getting better if that is the case. We can't always have our cake and eat it too. I've been around for too many cycles where people elect someone, and then spend months whining about a person that they were so hyped about to begin with, to be able to stomach it again.

[Marokai Backbeat]

It was not a mistaken assumption, regardless of whatever ensued. Napoleon openly advocated for the PPT position to become more partisan and resemble more of a "Majority Leader" role than an unpartisan administrator. Which is just another thing to chalk against him being in the Senate, IMO.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Your solution to incredibly binding partisanship was to introduce more partisanship. The problem back then wasn't how Senate administration was conducted, to say the least.

If you and I are both elected in our respective races, I hope we can work together to achieve the things we need to achieve; that it's at least a productive relationship. My concern is that we've tried to work together on reform in the past, and the response I got back then worries me for the future.

[Marokai Backbeat]

If you get elected, just be a friend of reform. It's all I ask.

[Marokai Backbeat]

If you get elected, just be a friend of reform. It's all I ask.

The best reform I can think would be the abolition of unity tickets (whether by abolishing the VP completely, electing it separately, it doesn't really matter at this point) to stop people like you from trying to come up with boring unbeatable tickets.

Duke and I promised each other we would one day run together in September 2010, after I first asked him to be my running mate, he turned me down, and then I bowed out of the race for Fritz as my grandfather had a stroke and then I had my own cancer scare. I was a close supporter of Duke when he ran in October 2011 and it didn't work out for him. This time, things worked out for us, the time felt right, and so we cashed in the promise.

When I ran with Purple State in June 2010 it wasn't to be "unbeatable" it was just right. It was the best thing for us, the best thing for the game, I wanted to be his running mate because I felt we were the best partners to be in government, and I did the same with Duke this time.

There are tickets that are gross super-coalitions that make no sense, which are harmful and should be discouraged, for sure. But I didn't pick a Federalist running mate from the hard-right for maximum political benefit; I picked Duke, and it makes sense why I did. It's unfair of you to keep accusing me of picking Duke for political reasons; I picked him for personal reasons.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Why should I be complaining, you guys are keeping this on the top of of the board.

Okay, you two, tear each other apart!!! Nappy can jump back in too if wants to.

I'm merely defending my running mate's honor, Yankee. Duke means a great deal to me.

[Marokai Backbeat]

It's curious, this insistence on "competition" above all else. When has competition been a panacea? June 2012 was "competitive", October 2011 was quite "competitive", but that didn't solve anything in the long-run. Having hot in-the-moment fun is a great thing, and competition is desirable and good, but if it's not serving a greater long-term purpose, it's effectively a distraction from much bigger things that are understandably tougher to grapple with. Competition is a great thing to have and we should try to have it whenever it naturally occurs; but we shouldn't induce competition for silly competition's sake, it does nothing more than a weekend of fun, and then we wake up to a 4-month long hangover.

Obsessive focus on competition is arguably what causes these high-school shenanigans, where different sides tirelessly scheme for ways to come up with the better coalition, it's where stupid personal grudges are built and people trying to find ways to hurt everyone's feelings. If that's what some people what the game to focus more on, then more power to them, I suppose, but I don't come here for "I'm not here to make friends" reality show crap, you know?

Here's the long and the short: If anyone here doesn't want to vote for me, that's A-OK. Really, I don't feel upset at all if people decide to vote for another candidate they feel is better for the job. But if someone decides to not vote for me because of a petty, shallow reason, I do not respect that, and I daresay my campaign is a referendum on whether you want a personality contest game, or a game with a bit more depth than that. Disagree with my ideas, but don't disrespect me as a person. It's not really that much to ask for, is it?

I thank Hagrid and ZuWo for their kind words. You're good folks.